Ultima Online From My Point of View

User Rating: 6.5 | Ultima Online PC
I was introduced to Ultima Online back in the late 90's by a good friend of mine. We used to play it on the school computer during lunch. I remember playing his character in a realm where there wasn’t a division of PVP and non PVP. There was no Trammel and Felluca. And everyone and their mother didn’t own a house. I remember when the housing market used to be active. Now it’s like if you want a house, go buy one off an online auction.

When I was finally able to have an account of my own, I created a character of every profession trying to find something that fit my style of game play. I eventually chose a mage and was able to get him to master, with the help of my friend of course. Since my friend had been playing since its release, he knew all the places to go to level fast. After the years, I had left UO behind because of work and other reasons. I’ve come back to it a few times just to see how things have changed. To my disappointment, they’ve changed for the worse. It’s not so bad as to say the game is horrible, but I just remember have a sense of adventure playing it. Now it seems like all everyone does is sit in front of the banks. Sure there are updates and expansions that give you new characters, items and lands to discover but that can only go so far. Once the 3D version came out, I thought it would make the game a whole lot better. I was wrong. The game play was way too choppy. When you made your character run, it felt like he was going in slow motion.

I logged on to Game Spot the other day and noticed UO was coming out with another expansion. The first thing that came to my mind was “oh great, more crap.” After looking at the screen shots and reading the short summary of things to come, I started to think maybe it’s not the end of Ultima Online. My friend and I are even thinking about starting up again. I just hope it’s not a big disappointment when they finally release it.

If you’ve never played UO before, I defiantly recommend it. And for god’s sake, don’t buy your items off eBay. It doesn’t make the game any better having 10 million in the bank and a house on some land if you don’t know the first thing about playing. Join a guild, make some friends and most importantly enjoy the game. It’ll probably give you some good memories to look back on years down the road.